It is often desirable to protect factory installed carpeting in a vehicle, and particularly carpeted floor boards from wear and tear, with floor mats. Such floor mats typically have an upper surface covered with a carpet material.
A familiar and long-standing problem associated with the use of such floor mats is that the floor mats have a tendency to move or shift (e.g., due to the action of the driver's feet on the floor mat during normal use and operation of a vehicle) and interfere with the operation of the brake and/or accelerator pedals.
Numerous attempts have been made to address the problem of movement of a floor mat relative to the carpeted floor board. One attempt is to provide fasteners or retainers which extend through holes in the floor mat, the carpet overlaying the floor board, and/or the floor board to attach the floor mat to the carpeted floor board. While suitable for maintaining the floor mat in a fixed position relative to the floor board, a drawback with the use of such fasteners is that the floor mat is not easily and quickly removed, cleaned, and reinstalled.
Another attempt is to provide disks or strips of VELCRO.RTM. brand (i.e., hook and loop-type) fasteners, for example, a first disk or strip having mechanically interlocking members (e.g., loops) secured to the back of the floor mat and a second disk or strip having mechanically interlocking members (e.g., hooks) secured to the carpeted floor board in registration with the first disk or strip. Drawbacks with this attempt are that only a small portion, e.g., the corners, of the bottom of the floor mat is secured to the carpeted floor board, and the floor mat must be properly aligned relative to the floor board for the portions of the VELCRO.RTM. brand fasteners to fully engage each other.
It has also been proposed to just attach, e.g., adhesively attach, strips of the hook portion of the VELCRO.RTM. brand fastener to the back or bottom of the floor mat for use on carpeted floor boards having loop-pile fibers so that the hooks engage the loop-pile fibers of the carpeted floor board to hold the floor mat in place. A drawback with this approach is that the hooks of the VELCRO.RTM. brand fastener are formed from a rigid material which damages the carpeted floor board when the floor mat is removed, i.e., the hooks pull the loop-pile fibers of the carpet material and cause the fibers to break and extend above the remaining intact loop-pile fibers. Furthermore, in manufacturing such a floor mat, separate operations or steps are required to adhesively attach each of the plurality of strips to the back of the floor mat.
Still another attempt is to provide an anti-skid foam backing to the floor mat to increase the resistance to motion between the floor mat and the carpeted floor board.
Still yet another attempt is to provide downwardly-depending conical or frustoconical projections or nibs extending from the bottom surface of the floor mat. A related attempt also includes providing a separate retainer member, which is positionable between the bottom surface of a floor mat and the top surface of the carpeted floor board, and includes upwardly-extending nibs for engaging the bottom of the floor mat and downwardly-depending nibs which engage the top surface of the carpeted floor board.
A floor mat with a plurality of nibs is typically molded using a first die having a plurality of apertures therethrough and a second die which provides a backing to the first die to form a flat lowermost bottom surface of the nibs. In production of floor mats having nibs, a heat formable/curable moldable material is forced into the apertures to form the nibs. The pressure used to force the moldable material is selected so that the moldable material is forced into the apertures while avoiding the occurrence of flashing, i.e., a fin or excess material along the mold joint line between the mating faces of the first and second dies. In addition, reliefs have been provided along the surface of the second die, some of which may extend below some of the apertures, to allow air to escape when forming the nibs. In producing finished floor mats having nibs, flashing and/or excess material entering the reliefs while infrequently occurring is unwanted and intentionally avoided to produce floor mats having cleanly formed nibs.
While floor mats having a foam backing or nibs increase the resistance to sideways motion and readily allow the floor mat to be removed for cleaning (e.g., providing no resistance to the nibs being vertically lifted from the carpeted floor board), such floor mats over time still move or shift during normal use and operation of a vehicle.
Therefore, there is a need for a floor mat which releasably attaches to a loop-pile carpeted floor board to inhibit movement of a floor mat relative to the carpeted floor board and which can be readily repeatedly removed for cleaning thereof while not damaging the underlying carpeted floor board.